"The Castle"

"The Castle". . , The "Castle" was built of limestone, and as in the case of several other stone buildings in Rockbridge County, the term "Castle" is included in the name of the buildings. The Northern two-thirds of the "Castle" was built shortly after the town of Lexington, Virginian, was chartered in 1778. The Southern one-third was built somewhat later., The "Castle" as originally built, had three rooms on each floor. The rooms were not connected in any way, and each was entered from without., The "Castle" was originally used for lawyers offices. The old present lawyers office building, on the East side of the Rockbridge Court House yard, is replica, in Flemish-bond brick of the plan of the original "Castle" building., Many students lived in the "Castle", and some became quite prominent., Prof. Hale Houston, some fifteen years before his death, remodeled the "Castle", and made it into two apartments., At his death in 1945, Prof. Houston left the "Castle" to the Rockbridge Historical Society, where the meetings of the Society are to be held, and where the collected historical material is to be preserved., "It is a reverend thing to see an ancient castle not in decay." Bacon